Why should we resist the temptations of arrogance and pride?
Last week, my wife and I attended a day-long Christian conference that featured about 15 different speakers. Many of the speakers shared helpful and encouraging details about their personal walk with Jesus. Several speakers also spoke about biblical leadership principles, while others ventured into topics like entrepreneurship and financial stewardship. It was a long day, but we were certainly glad to have the privilege of hearing several prominent voices in the Christian world share their thoughts.
There were a few “stand-out” moments at the conference, but one that I think I’ll always remember involved a speaker who approached his topic with a very arrogant posture. I think he thought he was being entertaining, but I found him needlessly abrasive. He insulted the audience. He bragged about his success. He gave off the impression that he was better than those who were there to listen to him.
Toward the end of his speech, a man stood up, walked toward the stage, and loudly confronted him. That man’s behavior was also out of line, but I wasn’t surprised to see something like that happen. The speaker’s arrogance was practically provoking it.
After the awkward confrontation, I noticed the speaker’s demeanor soften a little. He finished what he had to say, then sheepishly walked off the stage and handed the microphone to the next speaker in the lineup.
Pride and arrogance are a common human struggle. We struggle with these heart attitudes in our generation, but we aren’t the first to wrestle with these things. Scripture tells us that Satan himself was found to have a proud heart when he presented himself before God. As a result, he was cast out of his place of prominence in heaven (see Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28). The book of Hosea also demonstrates the struggle with pride and arrogance that was commonplace among the people of ancient Israel during their time as well.
There are several important things we can learn about pride and arrogance when we read what the Lord spoke to the people of Israel through the prophet Hosea.
1. The human heart is incapable of handling power and prominence properly.
When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling; he was exalted in Israel, but he incurred guilt through Baal and died. 2 And now they sin more and more, and make for themselves metal images, idols skillfully made of their silver, all of them the work of craftsmen. It is said of them, “Those who offer human sacrifice kiss calves!”3 Therefore they shall be like the morning mist or like the dew that goes early away, like the chaff that swirls from the threshing floor or like smoke from a window. (Hosea 13:1-3)
When reading through the books of the Old Testament, it can be a fascinating thing to witness God’s providential development of the nation of Israel. The Lord called Abraham to leave his homeland and move to the land of Canaan. Abraham had a son named Isaac. Isaac had a son named Jacob. Jacob’s name was changed by God to Israel. He had twelve sons who became the founders of Israel’s tribes. And after 430 years of fruitfully multiplying while living as slaves in Egypt, God raised up Moses to lead them to freedom, and Joshua to bring them into the Promised Land, the land that had been promised to Abraham centuries earlier.
Among the tribes of Israel, the tribe of Ephraim was often considered the most dominant, powerful, and influential. Their influence was so strong that Israel itself was often called Ephraim. Hosea states that when Ephraim spoke, people trembled. Ephraim enjoyed power and prominence in the nation, but what did they do with the power and prominence they had been entrusted with?
You would hope that they would have used that influence to encourage the nation as a whole to worship and honor the Lord, but unfortunately, they chose the opposite. Hosea points out their worship of Baal and their idolization of the religious artifacts made by local craftsmen.
We’re also told that they offered human sacrifices like the neighboring pagan nations. In their desire to please the false gods they wanted to honor, they willingly took the lives of people who had been created in the image of God, and sacrificed those lives to the demonic powers that held sway over their hearts. Sadly, this practice has never left humanity. Cultures throughout the world, including our own, are still sacrificing human lives to demonic powers. We may do so in different ways, and give our present-day practices more sophisticated names, but the intention remains the same.
This kind of godless arrogance ultimately comes to nothing. It doesn’t bear healthy fruit. It leads to despair and destruction.
A passage like this also reminds me of the sad reality that, unless our hearts are fully submitted to the lordship of Jesus Christ, and unless it is Jesus Himself who governs the affections of our hearts, we are humanly incapable of handling power and prominence. We will do similar things to what Ephraim did with their influence if we aren’t walking in step with the Holy Spirit.
Sadly, just this week, I read news of a “Christian celebrity” who let the influence of his platform get to his head. Instead of submitting himself to the guiding influence of Jesus, he invited this world’s passions into his life. Now, his double-life has been exposed and the fruit of his pride has brought him to the lowest place he’s ever been.
2. The salvation we need can only be found in one place.
“But I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt; you know no God but me, and besides me there is no savior.” (Hosea 13:4)
Every now and then, particularly when our arrogance may be keeping us from seeing the hand of God at work around us, the Lord blesses us with reminders of Himself. The children of Israel during Hosea’s era were living as if they had forgotten their God, so God Himself attempted to remind them of His power and presence.
Through Hosea, the Lord stated that He was the God who cared for them while they lived in Egypt and led them out of that land. It was He who gave them the commandments through Moses, including the first commandment to welcome no other gods into their lives but Him.
And God spoke all these words, saying,
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
“You shall have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:1-3)
Why did false gods tempt the nation of Israel? Why are we tempted by them as well?
Humans will ultimately worship what they believe will give them satisfaction and peace. If I’m convinced that something in this world, like money, power, relationships, or fame, can satisfy the void in my soul, I will worship those things. Those things will become false gods to me. But nothing this world supplies can bring ultimate peace and satisfaction to my heart. My heart will only find the peace it seeks through the Savior, Jesus Christ.
“This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. 12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:11-12)
The salvation that we all need can be found only in one place: Jesus. Don’t allow your lips to “kiss calves” like Israel was doing. Use your lips to acknowledge Jesus, confess your sin to Him, and praise Him for His grace and mercy.
3. In Jesus, we are redeemed from the power of death.
“I shall ransom them from the power of Sheol; I shall redeem them from Death. O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your sting? Compassion is hidden from my eyes.” (Hosea 13:14)
When reading through the book of Hosea, a book that includes quite a few statements that illustrate the depth of Israel’s sin and rebellion during Hosea’s lifetime, I’m also grateful for the hope the Lord makes a point to communicate. It’s a hope that’s anchored in God’s goodness and could see beyond the low and difficult season the nation was presently suffering through.
The Lord stated that He would ransom Israel “from the power of Sheol.” Sheol is a term that was often used in that generation to describe the abode of the dead or as a synonym for death itself. Death is something the Lord did not design humanity to experience, but because of our choice to welcome sin into our lives, we have experienced death ever since the days of Adam and Eve.
Most people spend a significant portion of their lives living in mental and spiritual slavery to their fear of death, but death ultimately finds its defeat through Jesus. Death appears to reign and score victory after victory, but the resurrection of Jesus demonstrated that death is now a defeated foe. Jesus defeated the power of death, and He shares His victory with all who trust in Him.
Christ’s victory over death is prophetically acknowledged by Hosea in this passage. His victory is spoken of elsewhere in Scripture as well by the Sons of Korah in Psalm 49 and by the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15.
“But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me.” (Psalm 49:15)
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When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:54-57)
In Jesus, we are redeemed from the power of death. In our human pride, we esteemed our own wisdom and preferences to be greater than the counsel of God. Satan’s pride got him kicked out of heaven. Adam’s pride got him kicked out of the Garden of Eden. Our pride and arrogance produce nothing other than depression, disease, and death.
But our Heavenly Father looked at us with compassion and directed Jesus, the Son of God, to come to this earth as a humble servant. Jesus endured the pain and indignity of life on this planet. He was rejected by those He came to save. He endured the most torturous form of death humanity could conceive, a form of capital punishment that was commonly reserved for the most heinous of criminals. Then on the third day after His execution, He rose victorious over death, demonstrating His sinlessness and divinity.
Jesus humbled Himself to rescue proud sinners, and He didn’t rescue us for us to return to the pride and arrogance that led to our experience of death in the first place.
As men and women who have been redeemed from death by the power of our Savior, Jesus Christ, let’s resist the temptations of arrogance and pride. Let’s see those conditions for what they really are: the fruit of a hopeless heart, and let’s walk in the joyous condition of our redeemed lives in Jesus.
© John Stange, 2025